


Roy Was a Social Drinker

by nekonexus



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-11
Updated: 2010-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-08 20:53:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/79420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nekonexus/pseuds/nekonexus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roy was a social drinker. It was one of the simple facts of life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roy Was a Social Drinker

**Author's Note:**

> Holiday ficlet for karotsamused (2006).
> 
> There are many ways I could write Hughes/Roy. Most of them would involve angst in large proportion, and would become sprawling epics of emotional involvment. Some of it would involve anger and arguments. Some of it would involve threesomes. ... But this was the simplest, shortest version. (Beware of possibly messed up timelines, and the fact that I'm relying on anime canon and fanon.)
> 
> In some universe:

Roy was a social drinker. It was one of the simple facts of life.

The not-so-simple fact went like this: Roy could be completely drunk when with others, and yet be sober by the time he stumbled home.

Hughes suspected he transmuted the alcohol in his blood into something harmless, but that was tricky work, and he really didn't want to think about Roy doing such a dangerous thing. So he didn't, or at least he tried not to, but a career in military intelligence will teach you to think too much, too often, about all the things that _other_ people get to blissfully ignore.

He walked Roy home, once. It wasn't because he wanted to catch him in the act. Not really. It was because there'd been a darkness in Roy's eyes, a tang of bitterness is his voice. Something reckless in the way he'd knocked back the shooters and the chasers.

Roy wasn't passively suicidal. Not really. But he had a capacity for deep, soul-agonizing brooding. Moments of introspection that nearly drowned him before he snapped back into a near-manic cycle and put everything he had into action. He was not a man to do things by halves.

"You don't need to do this," Roy said, quietly.

"Maybe I want to," Hughes replied, easily keeping pace with him.

"Why?"

Hughes shrugged, distracted for a moment by how dark Roy's eyes were as he looked up at him. He could banter, turn it into a joke, but they knew each other too well.

Roy turned away without really waiting for an answer.

"You should at least pretend to still be drunk, for the sake of appearances," Hughes said, as they walked up the steps to Roy's narrow house.

Roy lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug as he easily found his keys and opened the front door. "I never was."

He didn't invite Hughes in, but he didn't close the door in his face, either.

"It's all an act, then?" Hughes asked, finding himself unsurprised.

"Maybe," Roy replied. His face was unreadable in the dim light.

Hughes wondered how many of the others realized that Roy Mustang had such a chameleon personality.

"Are you really going to marry her, Maes?"

He took off his glasses, as unsurprised by the question as by the confession a moment before. "I love her."

Roy stared at him for a long moment, silent.

"We can't --"

"It's the _military_," Roy snapped, turning away. "It's practically expected."

"As long as you aren't open about it," Hughes added, gently. "Think of it as a cover story."

"But you _love_ her."

Hughes set his glasses on the shelf by the door, beside Roy's keys. Moving quickly, he stepped up behind Roy, wrapping his arms around him. They'd been over this. It wasn't so much bitterness as habit, now. A tired argument that was used to create distance. Hughes wasn't going to allow it at the moment. "It's... a matter of honour at this point."

Roy turned at that, still within the circle of Hughes's arms, and looked up at him. He studied Maes's features -- naked without his glasses -- for a long time before smiling broadly. "You're serious? You really...?"

Hughes nodded, smiling a little shyly. If there was one thing Roy Mustang understood, one argument he would always support, it was following the strictures of one's personal code of honour. They'd spent many a night in long discussion of honour and betrayal, of duty and responsibility. In the end it came down to this: if you felt honour-bound to do something, then you must do it to the best of your ability.

"We should celebrate," Roy said, his smile turning sly as he reached for Hughes's belt.

_Was this honest, or was it the chameleon?_ Hughes wondered, as he leaned down to kiss Roy. Either way, though he was willing to be distracted, he wouldn't forget.

They both knew Roy wasn't entirely sane.


End file.
